The Avalanche had just 30 games this year where the 6 primary defensemen - Liles, Foote, Hannan, Salei, Clark, Leopold - played. When I saw this, I thought maybe we weren't focusing enough on injuries to the core squad of blueliners.
Nope.
The Avalanche were 14-16 and allowed 3.1 goals per game with those 6. The Avs were 18-29-5 with one or more of them out of the lineup and actually had a slightly better avarage of 3.08 goals allowed per game.